runsforcelery wrote: Maybe I need to go back and do a short story set during the rescue mission to Old Earth from Beowulf. That war came within an eyelash of literally rendering Old Earth uninhabitable, and a huge part of what started and drove it to such lengths was the resentment of the genetic construct "super soldiers" who saw all the rest of humanity as at best cattle and at worst their mortal enemies. So there's a reason for that lingering fear, that residual prejudice, against any effort to systematically "upgrade" the human race.)

n7axw wrote:Thandi is not an alpha line. She was born on a heavy world planet that did all sorts of weird stuff with mods that nothing to do with Mesa.

Don

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What better way to hide being a genetic superwoman, than to live openly as a different genetic superwoman. She is highly intelligent, indisputably deadly, and has a habit of being in places or situations where the Alignment has either direct or indirect interests. (Maya, Torch, even on Mesa itself.)It's even arguable that she was serving Alignment interests directly when she jumpstarted the Mesan revolution. At that point, the MA had or was in the process of abandoning the planet, and chaos and destruction there only serves to muddy the waters and make them harder to track.

Even with the way the MA's plans have gone pearshaped, remember her original career path was the Solarian Marines. With her built in advantages, and a backstory that allows and encourages her to make public use of them, she could have become a very highly placed Marine and very useful to the Alignment under it's regular schedule.

Not saying that it's her, but I think a case can be made.

(Twist to the twist: Could Thandi be the first Alpha line to defect from the Mesan Alignment??? Love conquers all...)

73, Don.

Matt

I'm sorry. But this sort of logic is too twisty for me. I mean no disrespect, but what is with the impulse to find Mesa under every bush? It really doesn't make any sense. Mesa simply can't be held responsible for everything that happens in the galaxy. Thandi's planet of origin was a heavy grav world whose denisens got thoroughly caught up in moding in ways that even went beyond Alignment experimentation. IIRC, Mesa even imported some of that for its own heavy work lines.

Don't get me wrong. Manpower and the Alignment have much to answer for. But they are not responsible for EVERYTHING.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.

runsforcelery wrote: Maybe I need to go back and do a short story set during the rescue mission to Old Earth from Beowulf. That war came within an eyelash of literally rendering Old Earth uninhabitable, and a huge part of what started and drove it to such lengths was the resentment of the genetic construct "super soldiers" who saw all the rest of humanity as at best cattle and at worst their mortal enemies. So there's a reason for that lingering fear, that residual prejudice, against any effort to systematically "upgrade" the human race.)

The protagonist must, of course, be a Chao.

The biggest thorn in her side must therefore be a Benton-Ramirez. They hate each other instantly, massive cash of egos. end up returning to Beowulf, fall in love and ...

n7axw wrote:Thandi is not an alpha line. She was born on a heavy world planet that did all sorts of weird stuff with mods that nothing to do with Mesa.

Don

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Weird Harold wrote:What better way to hide being a genetic superwoman, than to live openly as a different genetic superwoman. She is highly intelligent, indisputably deadly, and has a habit of being in places or situations where the Alignment has either direct or indirect interests. (Maya, Torch, even on Mesa itself.)It's even arguable that she was serving Alignment interests directly when she jumpstarted the Mesan revolution. At that point, the MA had or was in the process of abandoning the planet, and chaos and destruction there only serves to muddy the waters and make them harder to track.

Even with the way the MA's plans have gone pearshaped, remember her original career path was the Solarian Marines. With her built in advantages, and a backstory that allows and encourages her to make public use of them, she could have become a very highly placed Marine and very useful to the Alignment under it's regular schedule.

Not saying that it's her, but I think a case can be made.

(Twist to the twist: Could Thandi be the first Alpha line to defect from the Mesan Alignment??? Love conquers all...)

73, Don.

Matt

I'm sorry. But this sort of logic is too twisty for me. I mean no disrespect, but what is with the impulse to find Mesa under every bush? It really doesn't make any sense. Mesa simply can't be held responsible for everything that happens in the galaxy. Thandi's planet of origin was a heavy grav world whose denisens got thoroughly caught up in moding in ways that even went beyond Alignment experimentation. IIRC, Mesa even imported some of that for its own heavy work lines.

Don't get me wrong. Manpower and the Alignment have much to answer for. But they are not responsible for EVERYTHING.

Don

_[/quote]

Next one to be chased down the rabbit hole will be Our Mr Firebrand. who better placed for evi Alignment plans. Yes I know why the elaborste ruse to recruit him from the Gendarmarie if he's alredy a member? Why that's the best part of a conspiracy theory.

Nobody said Manpower was responsible for everything,just that we'd blame them for everything.

OK, I think people are following red herrings with all of this "lost Alpha Line" business. If an Alpha Line got lost and started indiscriminate mating it would no longer be an Alpha Line; the whole purpose is to control the genome! And it seems to me what RFC was implying is that we've seen a character who is an Alpha and knows it, but that he, (sneaky devil that he is), has not told us! So, since said character is said to be "brilliant and deadly", but is working in the interests of the Mesan Alignment, we can pretty much rule out all of our "good guys"; they've done too much that is not in the MAlign's best interest. That means no Thandi, Honor, Victor, Anton, Yana, Eloise, or the like. That also rules out most of our "bad guys"; the ones that are brilliant and/or deadly have all been pretty much outed already as being Mesan agents. Brilliant or deadly doesn't describe most Sollies! Harahap is an interesting speculation, but textev points to his being recruited from outside; he would never have had to go to Mesa for bio-upgrades (and possibly a death switch) if he had. And I'm ruling out anyone who is no longer among the living, since that sort of revelation is sort of anti-climactic.

So my nomination for our secret Alpha is Georgia Sakristos Young, AKA Elaine Komadorski. She is brilliant and deadly, she's definitely a "bad guy", and we don't know where she is right now. My thought is that she was one of those "deep plant" agents the MAlign put into the slave population; we first see her as the betrayer of a freighter of escaped slaves, one that is wanted by the Ballroom. Betrayal helps Mesa, but also perfect opportunity to start a new identity for her to infiltrate Manticore, and especially its political structure. And you have to admit, she would definitely be a wonderful source of information once she became keeper of the North Hollow Files and a big wheel in the Conservative Association! Not to mention possibly being able to help steer Manticore and Haven back into war.

CmdrAthenaAprilist wrote:OK, I think people are following red herrings with all of this "lost Alpha Line" business. If an Alpha Line got lost and started indiscriminate mating it would no longer be an Alpha Line; the whole purpose is to control the genome! And it seems to me what RFC was implying is that we've seen a character who is an Alpha and knows it, but that he, (sneaky devil that he is), has not told us! So, since said character is said to be "brilliant and deadly", but is working in the interests of the Mesan Alignment, we can pretty much rule out all of our "good guys"; they've done too much that is not in the MAlign's best interest. That means no Thandi, Honor, Victor, Anton, Yana, Eloise, or the like. That also rules out most of our "bad guys"; the ones that are brilliant and/or deadly have all been pretty much outed already as being Mesan agents. Brilliant or deadly doesn't describe most Sollies! Harahap is an interesting speculation, but textev points to his being recruited from outside; he would never have had to go to Mesa for bio-upgrades (and possibly a death switch) if he had. And I'm ruling out anyone who is no longer among the living, since that sort of revelation is sort of anti-climactic.

So my nomination for our secret Alpha is Georgia Sakristos Young, AKA Elaine Komadorski. She is brilliant and deadly, she's definitely a "bad guy", and we don't know where she is right now. My thought is that she was one of those "deep plant" agents the MAlign put into the slave population; we first see her as the betrayer of a freighter of escaped slaves, one that is wanted by the Ballroom. Betrayal helps Mesa, but also perfect opportunity to start a new identity for her to infiltrate Manticore, and especially its political structure. And you have to admit, she would definitely be a wonderful source of information once she became keeper of the North Hollow Files and a big wheel in the Conservative Association! Not to mention possibly being able to help steer Manticore and Haven back into war.

interestin idea re Georgia... but

1) dont think she was a keeper of the files, otherwise the Malign would have had them and then half the lib/cons would still be on the MAlign chain and not just controlled by North Hollow.

2) she was too frightened on her exposure. If she was MAlign, then she would have known that she had a safe haven

CmdrAthenaAprilist wrote: So my nomination for our secret Alpha is Georgia Sakristos Young, AKA Elaine Komadorski. She is brilliant and deadly, she's definitely a "bad guy", and we don't know where she is right now. My thought is that she was one of those "deep plant" agents the MAlign put into the slave population; we first see her as the betrayer of a freighter of escaped slaves, one that is wanted by the Ballroom.

interestin idea re Georgia... but

1) dont think she was a keeper of the files, otherwise the Malign would have had them and then half the lib/cons would still be on the MAlign chain and not just controlled by North Hollow.

2) she was too frightened on her exposure. If she was MAlign, then she would have known that she had a safe haven

3) Georgia had a bar-code removed from her tongue; Alpha lines don't have bar-codes and aren't used for deep-cover moles.

Weird Harold wrote:3) Georgia had a bar-code removed from her tongue; Alpha lines don't have bar-codes and aren't used for deep-cover moles.

Not true. Second Torch Novel. They actually found one. There was a treecat working the emigration line and flagged a guy for further checking. It got lost in the shuffle then he popped up when he had a duplicate number.

AND the security guy that ratted out jack McBride's meeting with Anton and Victor's meeting to Anisimovna had a tattoo on his tongue too.